“We have no plans to have Venturer in our stores this holiday,” Wal-Mart merchandise spokeswoman Melissa O’Brien said. “We will continue to offer the best values on popular HD DVD and Blu-ray products from leading consumer brands like Sony, Samsung, Philips, Toshiba and RCA.”

Ultimate Electronics' director of merchandising for video Matt Duda is considering stocking the Venturer HD DVD player, but he doesn't expect a major swing in the format war until a better-known company, such as Toshiba or Sony, rolls out a sub-$200 player.

I thought this was interesting, if he is correct sounds like were not going to see action this holiday.

Who thinks it possible that Toshiba themselves manages to pull out-of-pocket price down to $199, at least for some window of time?

“We have no plans to have Venturer in our stores this holiday,” Wal-Mart merchandise spokeswoman Melissa O’Brien said. “We will continue to offer the best values on popular HD DVD and Blu-ray products from leading consumer brands like Sony, Samsung, Philips, Toshiba and RCA.”

Hmmmm... something is cooking...
I am sure the HD DVD camp did not forget that there is something called Wal-Mart and that they sell A LOT!

Still... with or without Wal-Mart, I'm sure those Venturer players will be a sellout.

Properly priced and plenty available, those players can invert Nielsen numbers for good.

ultimate electronics is over priced anyway, i love his quote that he would take the name brand one's over the chinese one's but from what i can remember a brand called APEX is what really ignited dvd player sales. That was my first one got it for 200 bucks.

This is a Chinese company that must move volume in order to turn a profit. They wouldn't have made these without orders on hand to buy.

Oh I agree. I just wonder who those orders came from.

Robert Zohn is saying he could possibly get over 1000 by October, so it's likely not just some paper launch (which Venturer isn't known for doing anyway). (1000 players for VE alone isn't what I'd expect Venturer would be jumping at to start a whole new manufacturing run. So there's got to be others, with higher numbers.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by jugganutz

ultimate electronics is over priced anyway, i love his quote that he would take the name brand one's over the chinese one's but from what i can remember a brand called APEX is what really ignited dvd player sales. That was my first one got it for 200 bucks.

Apex stimulated sales, but it had already been ignited prior to the Apex. DVD players sold at a very brisk rate before anyone had ever heard of the Apex.

just speculation here, but might WM be saying that they won't carry it under the Venture name??? they might slap their ILO name on instead, technically they wouldn't be carrying a Venture product but rather an ILO product. words are everything in PR.

just speculation here, but might WM be saying that they won't carry it under the Venture name??? they might slap their ILO name on instead, technically they wouldn't be carrying a Venture product but rather an ILO product. words are everything in PR.

As we've already mentioned, their wording doesn't hint at that either.

just speculation here, but might WM be saying that they won't carry it under the Venture name??? they might slap their ILO name on instead, technically they wouldn't be carrying a Venture product but rather an ILO product. words are everything in PR.

If words are everything, then this pretty much says it all.

Quote:

“We have no plans to have Venturer in our stores this holiday,” Wal-Mart merchandise spokeswoman Melissa O’Brien said. “We will continue to offer the best values on popular HD DVD and Blu-ray products from leading consumer brands like Sony, Samsung, Philips, Toshiba and RCA.”

It's the chicken and egg thing. Why even sell a player at any price if only one movie costs over 10% of the price of the player. People look at a player, want one, and then look at the price of the movies that would look best on it and say forget it and go and buy another $50 DVD player.